Development of a Typology for Understanding Visual Management Concepts and Their Relationships

Abstract

Visual management (VM) is a strategy for information management that aims to increase process transparency, one of the main principles of the lean production philosophy. It has been widely used in manufacturing, but the use of VM in construction is still very limited. As the development of VM is mostly based on trial and error efforts, it is useful to produce taxonomies of VM practices, which can lead to typologies to support the understanding of concepts and the development of theories. The main contribution of this paper is a typology of concepts related to VM that extends the contribution of taxonomies previously proposed in the literature, by emphasizing the role of collaboration and communication, as well as the need to integrate VM practices into managerial routines and to other practices. This typology has been used to assess the implementation of VM in 16 construction sites located in Brazil. Moreover, it has identified improvement opportunities, based on the comparisons of VM practices used in those sites to a sample of manufacturing plants.